Is there any good news for diet soda drinkers?

AP PhotoA study released this week links diet sodas to heart attacks and strokes, but the researcher says the results are "preliminary."

Diet soda drinkers were hit by bad news this week, when a study was released that links diet soda consumption with higher rates of heart disease and strokes.

It was a pretty strong link: People who drank diet soda every day had 48 percent more cardiovascular events than non-drinkers. It's enough to make you think twice about pressing the Diet Coke button on the vending machine.

Fans of diet pop might take some consolation in Dr. Muhammad Farooq's take on the study. The medical director of the Stroke Center at Saint Mary's Health Care is not ready to tell people to stop drinking diet soda solely on the basis of the study.

"The evidence is very preliminary," Farooq said. (For the record, he is not a diet soda drinker.)

However, Farooq is not telling people to load up on cases of diet pop either. The study raises concerns that deserve follow-up research, he said.

The study by researchers from the Miller School of Medicine at University of Miami and Columbia University in New York involved 2,500 adults in the New York area. Participants were asked about their soda consumption and their health from 1993 to 2001. In that time, there were 559 strokes or heart attacks, 338 of them fatal.

Those who said they drank diet soda every day had a 60 percent higher rate of cardiovascular events. After taking into account rates of smoking, diabetes and waistline size, the risk was still 48 percent higher for daily diet-soda drinkers.

No significant differences in risk were seen among people who drank a mix of diet and regular soda.

The research was presented Wednesday at the International Stroke Conference in Los Angeles.

Farooq said it's important to look at the study's design and all the data produced in evaluating the results. Although the study took into account some risk factors for cardiovascular disease, he said, "It is really hard to cover all the risk factors."

The makeup of the study subjects also could have an effect on the results, he said.

Half are Hispanic and one-fourth are black, making it one of the few studies to look at these risks in minorities, who have higher rates of stroke. Farooq said he did not know from the results released how many men and women were in the study.

The findings warrant attention -- and more study, he said, but added: "Clear evidence is needed before we recommend anything."

His comments echoed those of Hannah Gardener, lead author and epidemiologist in the Department of Neurology at the Miller School. She said other studies should look into the issue.

“It’s reasonable to have doubts, because we don’t have a clear mechanism. This needs to be viewed as a preliminary study,” she said.